Further Proof That Lln Was Gay | The New Yorker

Contents:

• WAS ABRAHAM LLN OUR FIRST GAY PRINT?
• FURTHER PROOF THAT LLN WAS GAY
• WAS ABRAHAM LLN GAY?
• ‘BOOK OF QUEER’ CREATOR ERIC CERVI TEACH LGBTQ HISTORY, LIKE HOW ABRAHAM LLN MIGHT’VE BEEN GAY
• PETE BUTTIGIEG SAYS THERE HAVE PROBABLY BEEN GAY PRINTS. HERE'S WHY THAT THEORY IS COMPLITED
• NEW BOOK EXPLOR WHETHER ABRAHAM LLN WAS GAY
• WAS LLN GAY?
• A REPUBLIN HERO, BUT WAS ABE LLN GAY?
• WERE LLN AND NIXON GAY? THE ‘HISTORY’ BOOK THAT IS DIVIDG AMERI

WAS ABRAHAM LLN OUR FIRST GAY PRINT?

Scholars have bated whether Lln suffered om a host of physil ailments, whether or not he was clilly prsed, and — perhaps most trigugly to some — if Abraham Lln was gay. An accatn of this sort uld even lead to ser prison time, so ’s no surprise that the historil rerd om the 19th century is sparse openly gay public figur.

For many years, a kd of gay-revisnist history has been wrten, which this or that historil figure is held up to tense scholarly scty and clared by one activist historian or another to have been gay, transgenred, or bisexual.

FURTHER PROOF THAT LLN WAS GAY

It’s evable that virtually all of the proment homosexuals of the Victorian Age would go to extreme lengths to keep their affairs as private as possible, and this mak hont scholarship on the subject challengg at bt. From the mixed rerds we do have, an distct picture n be drawn that pats the 16th print as anythg om a eply closeted homosexual to an enthiastic heterosexual.

WAS ABRAHAM LLN GAY?

After readg about the evince about whether or not Abraham Lln was gay, vis our post on the fotten story of the Lln assassatn and tertg facts about Lln you’ve probably never heard before. Scholars and historians are bld to Lln's same-sex clatns part bee of a personal aversn to male homosexualy, but more importantly bee they fail to perceive the vast differenc between the sexual culture of antebellum Ameri and that of our own time, pecially regard to male-male physil and emotnal timacy.

Lln, ” he imag a sensive story about two men who were the bt of iends and maybe Lln was gay or bisexual has never been substantiated, and the evince is weak. Department of Defense astronomer and gay rights activist Frank Kameny, is beg adapted by Tony-wng playwright Matthew López (“The Inherance”) as a limed seri for Amazon wh Brad Pt’s Plan B Entertament producg. There were reports of Capta Derickson wearg Lln's nightshirt, and Lln has been quoted as sayg, wh a "twkle" his eye, "The pta and I are gettg que thick."Many historians are quick to say that men shared beds due to a bed shortage and that surely Lln, the savr of the Unn, uld not have been gay.

‘BOOK OF QUEER’ CREATOR ERIC CERVI TEACH LGBTQ HISTORY, LIKE HOW ABRAHAM LLN MIGHT’VE BEEN GAY

The studied impulse to make Lln absolutely heterosexual reflects a discernible societal disfort wh the plexi of human sexualy and sexual orientatn, as well as eply embedd streaks of homophobia.Amerin history is wrten not only books but the sacred narratn of fay stori that endure as lible parchment our hearts.

But as I studied Lln's magnificent life, I realized that William Herndon, Lln's law partner for 20 years and the keeper of Lln's legacy, never mentned anythg that would leave one to believe that Lln was gay.One day I was havg lunch wh Rev.

PETE BUTTIGIEG SAYS THERE HAVE PROBABLY BEEN GAY PRINTS. HERE'S WHY THAT THEORY IS COMPLITED

"But I am puzzled about one thg: William Herndon has not mentned or wrten anythg that would dite that Lln was gay."She gave me a tellg look and said, "Well, here is the missg piece of your puzzle.

William Herndon was my great-great-uncle, and he was gay, and he was Lln's lover." She went on to talk about how this rmatn was hand down om generatn to generatn the Herndon fay.There are history books, and then there are generatnal stori that give character and qualy to the threads on the loom of history. “It might be more accurate to say that there may have been prints the past who sired men, or had sexual experienc wh men… they wouldn’t have necsarily intified as gay a 21st century sense.

Even if the two had some sort of attractn to other men, they wouldn’t have intified as gay bee that notn of livg as an out gay man didn’t exist, both historians say. “I thk that there were always gray areas and nuanc and plenty of possibili for men the late 19th and 20th century to have sex wh other men and not nsir themselv gay, ” Clev says.

NEW BOOK EXPLOR WHETHER ABRAHAM LLN WAS GAY

“I fd that the early 19th century, ironilly, almost prents an era where the same kds of pathologi [agast gay men] that will be prent all the way through the pre-Stonewall era aren’t que place yet. “As we bee more and more terted broang the tt, so to speak, of LGBT history, what we fd is we’ve taken people, who for one reason or another, don’t f to a normative pattern of heterosexual marriage and we basilly put this label on them as gay, ” Balcerski says.

Tripp is not the first to argue that Lln was homosexual -- earlier wrers have parsed his iendship wh Joshua Speed, the young store owner he lived wh after movg to Sprgfield, Ill. Tripp argu that a cultural nocence -- the word "homosexual" had not yet been ed -- allowed acts of physil closens between men that had no eper meang, as well as acts that did but uld pe scty. At about that time I met Tripp, whose posthumo The Intimate World of Abraham Lln has at last been published by Free the Ksey and I had mon so long ago was the knowledge that homosexual and heterosexual behavr are natural to all mammals, and that what differs om dividual to dividual is the balance between the two plementary but not necsarily nflicted driv.

But not Jonathan Ned Katz; 2001 this relentls scholar wrote a study of their “love affair” as an example of sex between men before the ventn of homosexualy; a word and generic ncept that dat back only to the late 19th century, while “heterosexualy, ” prevly popularly known as “jt sex, ” is now the name for a new admirable team whose first appearance public prt was a 1924 edn of, I fear, the New York Tim. “Ksey’s figur on the pervasivens of the homosexual experienc of men dazzled the ever quisive Tripp, ” as historian Jean Baker wr her troductn to his study of Lln.

WAS LLN GAY?

One fdg that Tripp evaluatg Lln: Ksey’s rearch showed that those mal who entered puberty early were more apt to seek homosexual outlets if only bee girls were out of reach. Incintally, the one thg that the Ksey report, Tripp’s The Homosexual Matrix, and my The Cy and the Pillar had mon, asi om the unwele ndor about our human tate, was the hysteria we created at The New York Tim. Tripp produc evince that one of Ameri's greatt Prints had a long-term relatnship wh a youthful iend, Joshua Speed, and shared his bed wh David Derickson, pta of his, a former rearcher for sex scientist Aled Ksey and an fluential gay wrer, clus asis by many of Lln's close iends.

A REPUBLIN HERO, BUT WAS ABE LLN GAY?

However, crics say that the pneer days men sleepg together rough circumstanc was not Tripp has disvered letters between Lln and Speed which supposedly betray a ep Tripp's book really breaks new ground s exhstive portrayal of many of Lln's possible gay lovers, cludg one man who said Lln's thighs 'were as perfect as a human beg uld be'. 'Make no mistake - Abe Lln was gay, ' said Profsor Stt Thompson, om the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at David Donald, a Harvard profsor and rpected Lln bgrapher, has disputed Tripp's fdgs his own book, We Are Lln Men, published last year, and says there is no five proof of Lln havg affairs wh any men. Tripp's rearch and disputed his Tripp was the thor of "The Homosexual Matrix, " a 1975 book that disputed the Frdian notn of homosexualy as a personaly disorr.

Tripp matas that other wrers, cludg Ida Tarbell and Margaret Leech, also found evince of Lln's homosexualy but shied away om fg as such or omted ccial Tripp c Lln's extreme privacy and acunts by those who knew him well. Baker qutn of Lln's sexualy is plited by the fact that the word homosexual did not fd s way to prt English until 1892 and that "gayns" is very much a morn Baker said the foc of 19th-century moral opprobrium was masturbatn, not homosexualy. We exame the powerful and never accsible rmatn that mak startlgly clear a great sufferg; we see this turn bee the source of power which mov this parched great spir to worldly greatns while matag his humany; and are forced to nclu that he uld never e to personally satisfyg terms wh the active homosexualy which he sacrificed to pnce and ambn on the thrhold of his reer.

WERE LLN AND NIXON GAY? THE ‘HISTORY’ BOOK THAT IS DIVIDG AMERI

For this se, any traed scholar who (like the prent wrer) is gay has a substantial advantage, the very same tuive feel that mastream analysts have for heterosexual is a paful qutn for most honorable, tolerant Amerins even to thk of posg. Equally obv is the reason for the agonized ristance offered to the sight--not to the trsic relevance of the sexualy of a master spir, but to the anxieti that the issue evok, once so much as posed among men of our culture alg wh homosexualy--pecially perhaps homosexualy how to make so dac a claim upon perhaps our greatt print? Homosexualy has never been attributed to this man--even a recent splendid psychobgraphy by the historian Michael Burlgame, which vlat every ntemporary piety wh a twenty-three page chapter on Lln's loathg of women, fails to explore the possibily.